


When in Rome

by Rhi



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Character of Color, F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-21
Updated: 2009-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhi/pseuds/Rhi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a beauty in aftermath, and in sweeping up the dust; the story's been told before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When in Rome

**Author's Note:**

> _For [**livii**](http://livii.livejournal.com/) in the [**dw_femslash**](http://community.livejournal.com/dw_femslash/) ficathon. Thanks to [**lookslikelove**](http://lookslikelove.livejournal.com/) for the onceover, Nickel Creek for shameless appropriation of lyrics, the elements of style for letting me bugger it sideways, DW canon for letting me handwave Harry Sullivan, and those folks who wrote the DSM-IVR. 1782 words._
> 
> Retrospective Note: Yours truly messed up Livii's request, but the fic turned out okay anyhow, and if you squint and take it as slightly AU, it's not even that jossed by S4 canon.

_Grab a blanket, sister, we'll make  
Smoke signals  
Bring in some new blood, it feels like  
We're alone  
Grab a blanket, brother, so we  
Don't catch cold  
From one another  
I wonder if we're stuck  
In Rome_

\------

The Doctor only took certain things into account. This was something Martha Jones had been finding out, slowly but steadily, and it was becoming more and more frustrating as she lived more without him and without the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed.

It was bullshit, really, the wandering about with blinders on, especially since now she knew full well that he had a demagnetised moral compass. But didn't things always happen the Doctor's way or no way at all?

Life had carried on, regardless of the pain and the PTSD and all of the things that she had to deal with, never mind him, he just went skipping off. Repressed anger was definitely a symptom, for starters. One of the worst, and most dangerous, and it was the one she strictly managed in herself.

Martha had gone into psychiatry if only for the fact that there was no one else to treat them.

_Them_ was not just her family, and Leo who didn't really understand why his sister's eyes were hard now all of the time. Of course the Doctor hadn't counted on the eye of the proverbial storm taking up a substantial portion of the airship, with enough people, over a hundred, who remembered the Lost Year because they had lived it, and no one to believe them.

Some got committed, and Martha had to pull a very large amount of strings to get the ones who hadn't completely cracked out of hospital, with thanks to some of Jack's people in Cardiff who knew some interesting things about hacking and had a very interesting drug on their hands. Once she held the vial in her hands and thought about dosing them all, ending it, but never for herself. Her reality was far, far too precious to her, a diamond of a story forged by anguish, and she wouldn't let that go.

Oh, and the fact that two of the major leaders of the world were very very dead, that was causing a certain amount of problems. Terror attacks and nuclear escalation--Martha left that to Torchwood and UNIT, because that was their job (they didn't deal so much in headshrinkers). Sweeping up after the Doctor tracked in the dirt.

Her family, at least, was doing all right. Mum was strong except when she accidentally caught part of _Schindler's List_ on the telly and Embeth Davidtz made her weep for hours in a way Martha had never seen before and hoped never to again. Dad had to get his life sorted, and by the time he'd done that, he'd done something in his mind and just ended up caring for Tish, angry angry Tish, and Francine.

Never mind how Martha was doing. She was fine.

So here they were, months and months later, and never mind her place in the Foundation Programme, Dr Martha Jones lived for her moonlighting and her patients, and she never called the Doctor because she wouldn't know what to say. She had other people's stories to hear, now.

She hadn't anticipated, however, receiving a referral, not at this late date; she knew all of the one hundred and twenty-one survivors, including herself, and Lucy Saxon who was somewhere out there where even Torchwood couldn't find her. This one was from a Surgeon-Commodore Sullivan of the Royal Navy, who she'd met once or twice, but never enough for her to speak of, really. She couldn't deny the fact that she'd help anyone that needed it, but this…the woman's name wasn't on any list. She was just some middle-aged journalist who lived in Croyden.

They met at her flat, which was well enough appointed and separated into office and living space with just enough reserve between the two and the panic button built into the watch Martha always wore, because occasionally someone did lose it.

"Ms Smith," Martha said, opening the door, not certain what to expect. She had a look about her, she supposed, though exactly what she saw in those dark eyes wasn't clear, just familiar.

"Dr Jones," Sarah Jane Smith said, giving a slightly tight smile that pulled a bit at the corners of her eyes. "I'm terribly sorry about the delay in contacting you."

"It's not a problem," Martha replied, blinking twice, then ushered her in and took her coat. "Would you like some tea or coffee or something? Have a seat."

"Tea would be nice." Sarah Jane smoothed her trousers neatly as she sat down, her gaze calculating--Martha could feel it as she set about with the tea and the cups and the kettle. "I must admit," she blurted, surprising Martha a little, "you aren't exactly what I expected. I did think you would be taller. All the stories, you know."

Martha turned, the spoon clinking against the teacup as she paused. "All the stories?" she said, maintaining a certain amount of calm.

"They said you traveled the world. That you were in Mumbai during the clearances and barely escaped with your head, that you were the only one who'd been to Christchurch and made it back free. That you had your amazing _story_. About a man who was going to save us all. And it was true, wasn't it. All of it." Sarah Jane's expression was anything but timid, her jaw set and her eyes clear as if she was determined to get the truth.

So Martha turned back to the tea. "I suppose so," she said quietly. "I suppose it was true." The spoons clinked and the alarm went off on the kettle, and her hand was shaking a little as she poured the water. "You're not on the list," she said finally. "You weren't there, how do you remember?"

Sarah Jane looked slightly piqued. "I thought Harry would have told you," she said, "even if I did ask him not to."

"I don't know what you mean, Ms Smith," Martha said, and handed her the teacup, her gaze now just as set as Sarah Jane's. The truth was, she was beginning to suspect.

"I think you do," Sarah Jane said, and pulled something out of her handbag. Despite herself, Martha winced, but she caught it and looked it over. And then looked it over again, then set it and turned it on. One of the bolts came straight out of the desk with a bit of a blue zap. So she looked up at Sarah Jane and tossed it back, eyes just a little wide. Not a whole lot surprised her these days.

"Of course the Doctor didn't say anything," Sarah Jane continued. "There's only so much he lets on about anyone or anything that happened outside of the here and now, the lummox. I suppose that's a coping mechanism, don't you think? I'm really not the one to diagnose, but I did have a lot of time to think about it all."

"Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma, restricted range of affect, all sorts of criteria leading to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, chronic," Martha said almost dismissively, "I figured that bit out long ago. You traveled with him."

"Oh yes. Quite a while, in my younger days. And then, do you recall that incident last year at the school in Deffry Vale, made a few of the papers? That was him, and I was there as well. And there's something about the TARDIS, apparently, that does things to one's temporal and spatial awareness." Sarah Jane took a long sip off the top of the teacup. "Which is why I remember it. Not all of it, dribs and drabs and fragments, nightmares from time to time of being in the camps. He had special ones for the media, the bastard."

This time it was clear who _he_ was, and Martha didn't bother to ask. She watched Sarah Jane for a long moment, and Sarah Jane, it seemed, watched her, both of them circling each other like rival lionesses and neither willing to show weakness. But, despite it all, Martha was young, and she had her training, the need to get out of stalemate.

"So you're seeking my help," she said, licking her lips once out of nerves, then sipping tea.

"In a way." Something in Sarah Jane's face softened, and she leaned in, hands wrapped around the cup. "Harry said you left him. Why?"

"I don't see why that's any of your business."

"Dear girl, if you'd drop your professional demeanour...lovely coping mechanism itself, incidentally...for two seconds, you'd see perfectly well why it _is_ my business."

Startled, Martha looked up, nearly dropping her tea. If it weren't for Sarah Jane's calm attitude and the authoritative look in her eyes, she would have told her to get the hell out of her flat. Six months earlier she would have done. But she was finding there was only so much of the grating ache she could take. After all, it was in the textbooks. Everyone needed human contact.

Or not so human.

"We're a sisterhood," Sarah Jane said. "Admittedly a small one, but there you have circumstance, and would you really rather call it a support group? I don't hold with that sort of rubbish." She set her nearly empty teacup down on a table and reached over to put her hand on Martha's knee. Martha tensed, but didn't pull away. Instead she looked at her, really looked, the mask gone from her eyes.

"I talked so much," she said, and her voice was far less confident than she would have liked it to be. "I don't know if I have anything more to tell. What do you do after…after this? And after him?"

"Everything else," said Sarah Jane, and she moved in, just once brushing her lips against Martha's.

For a moment, Martha thought she could feel the Vortex, all of space and time in a current, but it disappeared as soon as she realised it. And Sarah Jane was now sitting back in her chair, neat and careful, only a slightly change in her expression indicating she'd felt anything similar. Martha didn't have to ask for an explanation. She already knew.

It was just apparently her turn, but for once she wasn't certain what she could offer. Finally, she drank some tea and parted her lips. "This is a story about a girl who walked the whole world," she said. "Who saved it, but not perfectly, and who wanted to make it all right, anyhow..."

And early the next morning, after all that was left of Sarah Jane Smith was a slight scent in the air, an impression in a pillow, and a teacup with lipstick on it, Martha Jones picked up the phone.

FIN


End file.
